Under normal circumstances, the Pinelands Commission expects that a public agency's development plans will conform to all of the land use [N.J.A.C. 7:50, Subchapter 5] and development standards [N.J.A.C. 7:50, Subchapter 6] of the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan [CMP]. However, there may be instances where a public agency believes that a specific development plan can not conform to all of the CMP's requirements.

Although the Pinelands Commission expects these types of situations to be very rare, the CMP [N.J.A.C. 7:50 - 4.52 (c)] does allow the Commission to enter into an intergovernmental agreement that authorizes a public agency to undertake development activities that are not fully consistent with Pinelands land use and development standards.

The Pinelands Commission recognizes its obligation to exercise this discretionary authority very carefully and, under no circumstance can consider such an agreement unless the relief sought from CMP standards is offset by other measures that will provide at least an equivalent level of protection of the Pinelands.

In order to properly discharge its responsibilities, the Commission's Executive Director works with a committee of Commission members [the Policy and Implementation Committee] to evaluate requests for intergovernmental agreements and, if warranted, prepare a formal agreement for the full Commission's consideration.

This process consists of 12 steps, as outlined in the document below, and may take 12 months or longer to complete: